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Anthropologist Claims Humans, Neanderthals, Australopithecines All Variations on One Species   01/01/2005 According to a news story in the UK News Telegraph, all fossil hominims, including modern humans, Australopithecines, Neandertals and the recent Indonesian “hobbit man,” belong to the same species: Homo sapiens.  Reporter Robert Matthews wrote about Maciej Henneberg (U of Adelaide) and his argument, based on skull sizes and body weights for 200 fossil specimens, that all known hominim bones fit within the range of variation expected for a single species.  Henneberg made the startling claim in the Journal of Comparative Human Biology, where he said, “All hominims appear...

Siberian Graveyard's Secrets YEKATERINBURG, Russia In a medieval Siberian graveyard a few miles south of the Arctic Circle, Russian scientists have unearthed mummies roughly 1,000 years old, clad in copper masks, hoops and plates - burial rites that archaeologists say they have never seen before. . Among 34 shallow graves were five mummies shrouded in copper and blankets of reindeer, beaver, wolverine or bear fur. Unlike the remains of Egyptian pharaohs, the scientists say, the Siberian bodies were mummified by accident. The cold, dry permafrost preserved the remains, and the copper may have helped prevent oxidation. . The discovery adds...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A gene found in redheads and fair-skinned people may also play a role in the body's natural pain suppression system. But the gene, Mc1r, appears to impact pain suppression only in women, according to the study, published Monday in the advance online publication of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (news - web sites). The researchers found that redheaded women were able to tolerate more pain than other people when given an analgesic drug called pentazocine. All redheaded men, as well as men and women who did not have red hair, had similar-and...

The first ever Miss Germany with ginger hair says she's delighted at proving her doubters wrong. Critics had argued Babett Konau's hair colour would stop the 24-year-old from winning the title. She said her victory, ironically in the German town of Rust, proved being ginger was not an obstacle to becoming a beauty queen. The dental assistant, from Schleswig Holstein, said: "It's a really nice feeling to know you can win - even with red hair." Ms Konau has yet to decide whether she will continue working as a dental assistant, but added: "I hope I stay exactly how I...

That Flaming Hair Could Mean Flaming Pain - Study Mon Oct 14, 5:50 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Redheads may actually have another trait that makes them stand out -- sensitivity to pain, specialists reported on Tuesday. People with natural red hair need about 20 percent more anesthesia than people with other hair colors, they told a meeting of anesthesiologists. The unexpected finding not only suggests that redheads are more sensitive to pain, but offers insights into how anesthesia works in people. "Red hair is the first visible human trait, or phenotype, that is linked to anesthetic requirement," Dr. Edwin...

This questions has been bugging me since the police said he thought he was the joker .The only time i recall the joker having red hair is the cartoon version from the 80's Is this really considered Red hair ?It still looks light pea green to me !or even dirty blonde ...

Nobody likes going to the dentist, but redheads may have good reason. A growing body of research shows that people with red hair need larger doses of anesthesia and often are resistant to local pain blockers like Novocaine. As a result, redheads tend to be particularly nervous about dental procedures and are twice as likely to avoid going to the dentist as people with other hair colors, according to new research published in The Journal of the American Dental Association. Researchers believe redheads are more sensitive to pain because of a mutation in a gene that affects hair color. In...

What most people know about the inheritance of eye color is that brown comes from a dominant gene (needing one copy only) and blue from a recessive gene (needing two copies). University of Queensland geneticist Rick Sturm suggests that the genetics are not so clear. "There is no single gene for eye color," he says, "but the biggest effect is the OCA2 gene." This gene, which controls the amount of melanin pigment produced, accounts for about 74 percent of the total variation in people's eye color. Sturm has recently shown that the OCA2 gene itself is influenced by other genetic...

FORT WORTH — Meisha Franklin said her senior year at North Crowley High School was off to a good start until she was called into the principal's office on Thursday. "At first I thought it was my dress code, because my shirt was kind of out a little bit," she said. But the problem didn't have anything to do with what Franklin was wearing. Instead, the problem was focused on her head. Principal Trent Lovette said Meisha's hair violated the code that states no "unnatural" hair colors are allowed. <-snip-> Lovette said every day Meisha shows up at school with...

London - Red hair may be the genetic legacy of Neanderthals, according to a new study by British scientists. Researchers at the John Radcliffe Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford were quoted by The Times as saying the so-called "ginger gene" which gives people red hair, fair skin and freckles could be up to 100 000 years old. They claim that their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man who lived in Europe for 200 000 years before Homo sapien settlers, the ancestors of modern man, arrived from Africa about 40 000 years ago. Rosalind Harding, the...

Gephardt Blasts Missouri Confederate Flag Tuesday, January 14, 2003 JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri Democrat Dick Gephardt, who declared after a visit to South Carolina that the Confederate flag shouldn't fly "anytime, anywhere," wants the flag pulled from a publicly funded Confederate memorial in his home state, his spokesman said. "He did not know this existed, and he believes that flag should come down also," Gephardt spokesman Erik Smith said Tuesday.